The 19 Most Frustrating Things About Casual Dating

Have fun sleeping in your contact lenses because staying at his place was a ~*~*surprise~*~!

1. Not knowing whether you're going to spend the night or not, so being unsure of how to pack or not pack. Maybe you wisely bring along a change of panties and a contact lens case, and it doesn't happen. Or you didn't bring anything and it does, and next thing you know, you're showing up to work on a 20-degree day in an Isabel Marant for H&M miniskirt.

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2. When the guy is wishy-washy about the bar/restaurant. "Where do you want to go? I have no ideas." #No.

3. Having incorrect people tell you not to text him first after you just hung out. There are no "rules." Don't let them fool you.

4. And if you do text him first, you wind up staring at your phone willing him to text you back. Five minutes pass … Ten minutes pass … Half an hour passes ... All of your productivity has flown out the window.

5. The drinking culture that pervades dating nowadays. It's easy to use the old fallback booze plan to avoid awkwardness, particularly because you're not in a place yet where you'd do something like take a day trip or even have dinner. However, not to sound like an Old, but getting hammered on a casual date, waking up in some random apartment hungover, and awkwardly slinking out before he wakes up becomes tiresome after awhile.

6. The persistent fear of STDs. Even if you use condoms, and I hope you are, you never know who else he could be sleeping with. And you can't ask, because that's not ~*~*cHiLL*~*~*.

7. Your friends don't meet him — so it's kind of dull for them when you want to talk about him. You know how you feel when your friend is like, "OMG, my friend Jennifer's friend Jennifer is sooo pretty," and you're like, "Ugh, I don't care about strangers?" Yeah. Like that. Also: Harder for them to help decode/overanalyze his words, actions, general existence, etc.

8. Being unsure whether cuddling is appropriate or not. Is cuddling with a casual sex partner even cuddling? Or is it simply lying in a gridlocked position with someone whose middle name you don't know? You be the judge.

9. Consciously holding back from saying things about the future. This summer we can have a cookout— I mean I can have a cookout, whether you're there or not is whatever, I'm not looking for a commitment, I'm ~*~*sOOOO~*~ not one of those girls, I'm— *spontaneously combusts*

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10. You never just veg out with each other. Staying in is too intimate for you guys — there always has to be some kind of plan, even if it's just going to a bar or a restaurant. Which kinda sucks for the lazy daters among us, not to mention that the veg-out brand of dating is way less pressure.

11. You feel the need to sleep with your makeup on. Or wear the cute, less-comfortable pajamas that you reserve for these occasions.

12. You inevitably lose sleep because you're not used to sharing a bed with this person. Casual date-sleeping doesn't even count as real sleeping. More like five naps taken between the hours of 1, 4, and 7 a.m.

13. You're pretty much gonna have sex even if you're both tired. Say you see this person once a week, and you've just recently started having sex with them. And you probably both trimmed your pubes in preparation for this. No matter how exhausted or not in the mood you both are, you have a duty as post-date sleepover partners — nay, as AMERICANS — to do it.

14. But you might not have sex frequently enough to learn each others' styles and needs. Just enough to get used to their idiosyncrasies, but not enough to really let loose.

15. When your period inevitably arrives one day before the date. Goddammit.

16. You don't really feel like you can ask the person what they want in the long run. And he probably feels unsure about when it's appropriate to ask the "What are we?" question too. So basically both of you don't have a plan.

17. Having to juggle multiple guys so you don't get sprung on one. Particularly hard for introverts.

18. Going through the whole getting-to-know-him rigamarole and then finding the one dealbreaker that indicates it was a complete waste of time. Impotent? Bad tipper? Pro-life?

19. Fielding the potential for utter and complete awkwardness on a regular basis. Perpetually meeting up with strangers to see if there's potential to love each other? Talk about #brave.